Her Imprisoned Ink
by Kuriimu
Summary: Len has recently started working as a part-time aide at an institution where his childhood friend, Rin, resides as a long-term patient recovering from her seemingly incurable state. Seeing Rin now, he now has more of an unconditional longing to stay by her side and help her like no one else can. With his kindness, Rin's heart seems to melt from the warmth no one gave her before.


**Chapter I: _Heaven Preserve Her_**

**Date: 18 February, 2008.**

There was a faint scent of water in the air. If that wasn't what Len awoke to, it was the feeling that someone else was already awake. He flipped over on his bed and sat up, collapsing the duvets to squint at the green glowing numbers of the clock sitting motionlessly on his nightstand. It was a little past midnight, a time where certainly everyone in the house would be asleep. Perhaps it was only nausea.

Usually, he'd go back to sleep…but…

Giving way to childlike curiosity albeit also concern, the twelve-year-old stepped over the piles of clothing he refused to tidy up the week before, along with empty water bottles and even a strange-looking stain on the carpet. It was a miracle that he hardly acknowledged their presence, as anyone else—even Rin who wasn't so intent on cleaning, either—complained about the pigsty.

Finally, he wrenched his door open and peered into the hallway. The guestroom, just a few steps away from his own bedroom, where Rin was supposed to sleep at was empty judging by the ajar door that was typically closed shut. His eyes glanced past that and he tiptoed as quietly as he could past his parents' bedroom and beyond. He saw a sliver of light down the hallway, refracting against the wall and onto the wooden floors.

The bathroom light was on, for one thing. And he could smell steam. (He never liked hot showers; they burned and reddened his feet.) The air felt heavy, more moist, like a damp blanket had been draped over the entire hallway. Len tilted his head, confused. No one else took hot showers besides Rin. What was she doing up at this hour?

Then again, she _had_ been behaving rather strange lately and he refused to even ask the reasons of her methods anymore in fear of being snapped at. Rin was always mysterious, and he knew that, but even this ran past her typical standards of being cryptic.

Rin's father had passed away not long after she had been born while he was travelling the world. He had a case of wanderlust, always wishing to be here and there as if his life depended on it, and his wife apparently was always weighed with guilt that she hadn't even forced him to return home to see his daughter. There was a tsunami when he was out at sea one day and when the waters finally calmed its once violent waves, there wasn't any sign of the was pronounced dead a month later, leaving Rin in the care of her then widowed mother.

Rin didn't talk about her mother. Much. She didn't talk about her personal life at her own home, period. Presently, what Len and his parents knew of was that her mother was out on a business trip and had left her daughter with Len's family. According to Len's own mother, they were friends back in high school and though they no longer held the intimacy they had back then, somehow Rin's mother appeared to trust the woman nevertheless.

Len advanced forward until he coasted the wooden door. There, the steam grew thick and the difficulty to breathe told him to return to his bedroom and leave Rin be. He felt like there was something compressing his chest, threatening to bolt out like an escaping prisoner. The water was running in the shower, of course, but it was spraying around on the floor and engorging the drain. Sounds of water sloshing about on the floors broke the swallowing, eerie silence. Then, there was a strange noise coming from the inside, one that tightened his throat and thudded his heart.

Rin was crying.

And at that moment, something just broke loose in him.

All sense vanquished from his system, he twisted the doorknob open and called out her name.

But the door in an instant collided with something and repelled back to Len. He stumbled back, startled at first although managing to regain his balance. He paused for a moment, his body retaining a still stature outside with a hand lingering hesitantly on the doorknob. Then, with caution, he steered inside and soon enough only a light dusty color flooded his vision.

It was like a fog had invaded the small bathroom. Only half of the light bulbs were on at the time, so he blindly stirred his right hand around until at last they located the light switch. When he did and triggered all the lights on, the dusty clouds eventually dissolved and his eyes found Rin. Or really, what was technically Rin.

She was lying on the floor at his feet, her face in the direction of the table with the mirror. It was likely her shoulder had been slammed into when he tried to open the door the first time. Her body was sort of in a fetal posture, a yellow towel knotted around it. She was pale, an ill tinge to it with blue veins trailing from her hands. Her hands' knuckles were knobby, fingers curled up into a fist. Eyes were curtained down, swollen.

Len crouched down to her, his hand reaching over to brush his fingertips past her right cheek. To offer her comfort or to comfort himself, he wasn't quite certain. When their skins came in contact, he noticed how clammy hers felt in comparison. Her skin never felt like that before; it was always soft and smelled of citrus. Or at least, it once was like that.

He swallowed the growing lump down his throat, fear clawing at his insides and threatening to stretch skywards to release tears. She seemed to have been like this for so long, but he hadn't even reached a hand out to help her.

"Rin?" he whispered, voice thinner than a mosquito's wing. "Are you alright?" It was scary, seeing her like this. Worse, he didn't even know she passed out from lack of sleep or—

Or something worse. And yet, he would still be able to assert it was his fault.

She moved a little, perhaps in response to his question, yet looked barely conscious. It was at that shift her towel was adjusted, enough for Len to see what his best friend had done to herself.

Almost as if she was a walking skeleton. That had been the first thought that crossed his mind. When he examined more of her body, he noticed her thighs didn't press together despite her position. There was somewhat of an orifice between them, and the lower cerulean eyes trailed there were more things he didn't want to see. Her legs were pale, even if she always had a beautiful skin complexion. Instead, now, she was not like that. Contaminated. Decayed. An untainted innocence wasn't to be abolished like that, harshly lacerated to fragments that wouldn't fit the same ever again and only leaving a living corpse as proof of what happened.

And yet, out of all those aspects of what he once knew as Rin, there was a single memory that would forever torment Len. Her shoulder blades, nearly seeming to puncture out of her skin, resembling the wings of a yellow baby bird he had once found in the garden of the house. To be so new to the world, and somehow already broken by a simple fall.

Len found himself staring at Rin through a watery veil, one that couldn't fade away.

* * *

**Present-day **

"Len Kagamine?"

The said boy was jarred awake from his dream, heart bucking and eyes flurttering open the adjust to his current surroundings. Prior to the awakening, his chin had been resting on his chest, and as he sat up straight a painful cramp sliced through his spine. As Len rubbed his back, his gaze flew over beige walls and the many abstract paintings hanging over them as though to contrast the bland colors of the rear surfaces. Around him lay multiple chairs, most of their occupants being visitors to the institute, and a large desk was situated at the farthest left corner of the room diagonal to the myriad of seats. There, a brunette donning a red business jacket with a matching skirt and black heels was staring in his direction, brown orbs scrutinizing him.

"Len Kagamine?" she repeated a touch more impatiently, and it was to that he sprung up from his chair like a jack-in-the-box and hustled over to the desk. Her tight features unwound into a comfortable, pleased smile, and it was strange how it looked. It was the way you looked at an long-lost old friend, recognition dewrinkling your features.

But as far as Len acknowledged, he'd never seen this woman in his life.

"Um, hello." Len scraped his blond hair back with a hand anxiously, suddenly feeling self-conscious about his attire. Perhaps he should have dressed more appropriately for the job, but something had told him dressing in a suit and all seemed to be stupid. He regretted that decision wholeheartedly. A pale blue button-down with sleeves pulled up at the elbows looked ridiculous, even though he wore a tie, compared to what the woman wore.

"It's Meiko. Pleased to meet you. I'm the person in charge of the entrance sector, let it be guests, visitors, or newcomers," she summarized for him, smiling not too thinly like one would expect from a seemingly strict person like her, instead revealing pearly whites that weren't smudged by her red lipstick. A swatch of hair fell back on his forehead. "This your first day, correct?"

Anxiety dissolving similar to Crystal Light in water, Len nodded his head.

"I'd taken the liberty of checking your school and criminal records, which both appear to be satisfactory," Meiko went on, her voice smooth. Noticing his raised eyebrows and perhaps slightly hurt expression, she laughed lightly. "Don't take it too personally! Mr. Shion simply has a habit of forgetting to check things like these."

His mouth formed a small 'o', but he nodded anyway. One couldn't ever be too careful.

He had taken courses on health, nutrition for adolescence and above, and importantly psychology in order to be deemed acceptable as a part-time aide. Studying for these courses had been a pain, considering he a bit of a thick person on these type of subjects. But to be by Rin's side and beyond, it was alright. As an aide, he wasn't to organize Rin's dietary plans though he had an idea of what they should be. So far, he knew that Rin was being fed intravenously to make up for the lack of nutrients—with a needle in her arm.

It didn't sound pleasant.

He wondered what Rin was thinking about at the moment.

However, Meiko redirected his attention. "According to your application, you had requested to be with a certain patient. Rin Kagamine. Why is that?" At that moment, sweat beaded at his neck, heat rising to his face and spreading like wildfire. What could he say without sounding like a madman?

"Um… I… I was her friend," he managed to strangle out from his throat. He felt a stab of irritation at himself. _Rin's friend? You dare call yourself that?_

"But, she has been here for five years." Meiko's eyebrows pinched together. "Why now? Why now do you choose to see her? I was told you hadn't even visited her before, only once and that was it."

There was a long, stiffening pause. Some of the people in the group of chairs shifted in their seats uncomfortably, indicating the duo had been rather loud in their discussion.

Len's mind scrambled for an acceptable answer. Confronting Rin was not something he could do again at the time. After all, when he visited her and tried to speak to her, she had thrown a chair in his direction and he would have been admitted into a hospital too had not his father pulled him aside and ushered him out of the room. His very presence appeared to anger Rin. She was imprisoned in a hospital because of him, therefore she seemed to place the blame on him, having no sign of eating by will any time soon, either.

His parents had consistently visited her when they could up until unknown reasons where they just stopped. He didn't question the why and wherefore. It bugged him still that he didn't. They never mentioned her anymore, either.

"I… Well, I was afraid." He tried to ignore the knurl of shame in his chest, but to no avail. It kept eating at him as he hurdled on, his nails biting into the palm of his hands. "Believe me, I am as ashamed of myself as you are. But, I want to help her. One day, I saw a news article with her in it. I found out she hadn't even left the institute. For the past years, I'd thought she would have left already. When I realized she was still here, something in me, just… exploded, I guess. I want to help her."

He wanted to, really.

He wanted to show all the love he could give.

"Well, yes… We never disclose information about our patients…" Meiko sighed, lowering her eyes onto the desk. She pursed her lips as she cradled the side of her head with a hand, arm propped up by the table. Something else, not irritation, welled up in those eyes. "But somehow news broke out. We don't know who did it. In fact, to this day we haven't a clue why they would so such a thing." Her face softened. "I'm glad, in a way, that you saw it and stood up to do something for her. Miss Rin concerns me all the time." She smiled sadly.

_All the time._

"Welcome to the Shion institute, young man. Let's go see Miss Rin, shall we?"

* * *

**The instrumental of Turtle by Davichi was a nice background music for me. I like the lyrics in it too.**

**English isn't my first language. My sentence structures and vocabulary may be strange sometimes. I also have a habit of writing too big paragraphs, so you can notify me if things like that happen! **

**I think anorexia is a touchy subject. It's not something you can just open up a word document and start writing about. Research is hard, and I mostly took information from what I experienced and placed it into the story. **

**Review, please? I love feedback~ m(_ _)m**


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